According to a report posted on the Internet
during September, a University of Washington group has reduced the uncertainty
in the value of G, the universal gravitational constant, by almost a factor of
ten. Their preliminary value is G = 6.67390 x 10-11 m3/kg/s2, with an
uncertainty of 0.0014%.

Combining this new value of G with
measurements made with the Lageos satellite (which uses laser ranging to keep
track of its orbital position to within a millimeter) permits the calculation
of a brand new, highest precision mass for the earth of